tanking

Hello everyone.

I have been tanking for a few years now,in fact since the launch of Heavensward.
Despite knowing the rotations back to back, that alone does not make a good tank. There are many other nuances that allow you to do a better a job, namely awareness of your party and what can you do to make their experience smoother.

These are the tanking tricks and tips that every tank should know.

(Dungeons) Although you may be over geared and very knowledgeable in the dungeon your currently doing, ( I.E expert roulette) it's good idea to pause and look at your party comp. You might have two melees, or magic mixed with melee, or even dual magic casters. This is can be indicative of how long your dungeon will take.

Pay attention to your healer, this is a pretty big one. Remember not all healers like big pulls, there are many skill levels and variations of healers that you encounter out there. You have a couple of options. First you can ask the healer directly if he/she wants big pulls or smaller ones. This is a great way to ensure that the dungeon will run smoothly. Always keep an eye on your healer’s mana pool. You can prevent a wipe or even a dps death or two by using this method.

(Pace) As a tank you, determine the pace of the dungeon, with that being said, you must always gauge the damage of your party versus the size of the pull. If it takes too long to dps down, your healer will spend more mana to keep you alive. If that's the case, reduce the size of your pulls to reduce stress on the healer and to fit the pull size to damage output.

(The Face Puller) There are players that are dps, most commonly ranged, that will pull the mobs for you. This can be for two reasons:

The "i have no time for this" guy, and they will pull ahead of you. In their mind you are not fast enough, so they are being a"pal", and helping you out. Now make no mistake, this player is a veteran and trolling you.

2. The rarest of the pair,but whom exists nonetheless, is the "MMORPG new player”.Now this guy doesn't do it on purpose, he just doesn't know any better.

Now, I understand that this is enraging, but the path of "you pull it,you tank it" is not the right path. Instead drop a line asking them to stop. If it's a new player they may ask why (rare,very rare), and if it's not a new player then they will not stop. Now I encourage you, as a tank, to test yourself at this point. View this assault to common sense and to all that is good with the trinity,(tank,healer and dps) to learn from this. First, don't lose your cool and second, try and regain control of the mobs. One at a time if you have to. It may not feel like it but this, in the long run, will make you a hell of a tank. This situation added another tool to your tanking kit called "it's cool bro I got this", instead of embarrassing yourself typing in caps and losing further control of the mobs. You, my friend, have just outclassed a grade A troll.

As far as bosses go, if you don't know the mechanics, please ask “if there is anything that you need to know before pulling?” No shame in that, generally people are more than willing to help you out. If you do have knowledge and want to tank the boss in a specific position, or use a specific strat, please do inform your party. They are your team, even if you don't know them and dungeons go a heck of a lot faster if everyone is on the same page.

(Raids) Tanking in raids is slightly different, using more advanced techniques and requires a broader coordination with your party. Discuss tank swaps and overall positioning for the different members of the party when executing boss mechanics. However, even before that, let's discuss the different types of raids.

Alliance raid; This is a 24 man raid comprised of 3 teams of 8 people, each of these teams will have one tank, 2 healers, and 5 dps. This is especially true on current content, each team will have a specific location. For example, in a boss arena team A goes left, team B goes center or back, and team C goes right. This is set up for when the adds spawn in a group of 3. They need to be tanked separably of each other. Team B takes their add North, team A takes their add West, and team C takes their add to the East. Each tanks grabs one, and the respective groups dps them to oblivion, after which all teams collapse on boss. .

Deciding who will be the main tank; Usually team B takes the main tanking spot, but sometimes this is not the case so please specify your intention to “MT”. If this is not specified, what happens is that you end up with 3 tanks fighting for aggro on a boss, and I will tell you that every time this happens the one that wins the aggro fight is usually at the bosses back ! The result? The boss turns around, cleaves the raids,kills half of the raid, with the rest wiping to mechanics. Its goodnight and you are left without tissue to wipe your tears of salt. To avoid this, use common sense. If you see two tanks fighting for aggro remember that there might be smaller adds around the arena that need to be rounded up as well as placed behind the boss so they can be AOE'D down. This is your job as an off tank and it is as important as tanking the boss. Remember, your job is to keep the party and raid safe. A black mage running for his life, while funny, is a black mage that does zero damage. That hurts your up times as well dps checks so bear that in mind next time you go in to an alliance rai

Tier raids and trials(extreme and normal); For these kinds of raids you take an 8 man party. Typically, they have only one boss and a hell of a lot mechanics. These types of raids and trials(i'm including trials as well as they function in the same way), require a more personal touch. The party will discuss at the start how best to approach this. Main tank and off tank have specific jobs(most of the time) as well as dps and healers. Before you get in to the trials or raids(omega currently) make sure to watch a video guide on the raid. It will give you some idea of what will happen, and it will be a good starting point for your learning curve. Every time you die, try to learn something from it. Don't mope, learn why you died, and avoid it next time, it’s a thing we call progress. Always try to make use of your utility tanks, they have great group mitigation (wings,shake it off and divine veil)these will mitigate damage and the healer will have a better time to top everybody off. Follow these basic tips and add your own style to tanking and you will be one of the greats.

Tanking might seem stressful and scary at first, however, if you follow some simple guidelines and use your common sense as well as having environmental awareness and party awareness, it will be rewarding and extremely fun. I apologies for the length but wanted to share my ideas. TANK you :)

If you edit your post after making it you can go past the character limit :), just be sure to save your body of work before doing that stuff so you don't lose it on accident~

Nice of you to share tips for other tanks :)

Most tanks that desperately need to learn very likely don't visit the forums, but it's good to post this stuff anyway. I just did Great Gubal Library while leveling NIN and had a DRK that was leveling but had PLD at 70 that spazzed out with every group of enemies and made it impossible for me to hit enemies from the back because they kept spinning around. Some people just can't be helped and refuse to learn, even if they've played for some time.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

If you edit your post after making it you can go past the character limit :), just be sure to save your body of work before doing that stuff so you don't lose it on accident~

Nice of you to share tips for other tanks :)

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thank you. i did not know that,ill be sure to use this in the future.

you are right Doozer,most people don't visit the forums and it's a shame.it has so much good info,but at least the info is out here.

Ty for posting this. I already know a lot of the basic etiquette from tanking in other games, but certain nuances help me understand tanking relative to FFXIV.